One of the most difficult things I learned in my first year of teaching was how to write a good, fair test. I was surprised that this had never really been covered by any of my education classes. The key to writing a good test is to make sure it is challenging, but fair. Try to find out what the students know, not what they do not know. Tests should also require the students to show different abilities yet gives them choices.

Before preparing your test, prepare a list of ideas and facts you believe the students should have learned and were covered, either in class or some reading. The questions should not be so specific only an expert in the field would be able to get it correct. Asking questions about obscure things that the book may mention once, but are never emphasized again is overly difficult and unfair. One colleague of mine would give 200 multiple-choice chapter exams. That is totally ridiculous. The amount of detail needed to come up with that many questions is beyond what students need to know.

On the other hand you do not want the entire test to be so easy that anyone could do extremely well even if they had not prepared. That does not show you anything about the learning that is taking place. There needs to be a healthy mixture of easy, moderate and difficult questions.

Once you have an idea of the concepts and information you want tested, the next step is the format of the test. A good test is a mixture of different styles. I personally feel multiple-choice and true/false questions are pointless, alhtough students do need to be exposed to multiple choice questions because of the many standardized tests they will be required to take over the years. True or false questions require very little knowledge and can be answered with a high probability with a guess. Multiple choice questions are a little harder to guess at but they do not accurately measure student knowledge. Just because a question was answered correctly, does not mean they knew the information. It could have been a good guess. An incorrect answer does not mean the student does not know the information. Multiple choice questions can be very confusing or the possible answers can be tricky. The all of the above, none of the above or both A and B kind of answers make relatively easy questions difficult.

Some kind of written response is the best way to determine a student's knowledge of the information and their level of ability at a very important skill. There are a variety of ways to do written response questions. There is the famous long essay. In a typical class period a student only has time answer one or two of these. Other written response questions are identifications, where something has to be explained in two to three sentences. There are short answer questions that require a paragraph or two response. All written responses do not have to be full sentences. I frequently ask the students to answer in bullet or outline format. This is easier to grade and focuses on the information.

A good test should have a variety of question styles. There can be some identification, multiple choice, short or full essay questions. How many of each will depend on the length of the class and the material being tested. It is also important to give students some level of control during the exam. By allowing the students to pick which questions they answer they can better emphasize what they know. I will often tell the students they must do five of the eight identifications, or three of the five short answer questions. Giving the students choices also gives me a good idea about what information the majority of the students feel they understand. If no one in the class does one of the questions, either it was not covered well or the question is not good.

Writing good tests is difficult. Remember to challenge the students with out being unfair, use questions that require different skills, and allow the students to demonstrate what they know and your tests will be worth taking.